Controlled by Influencing Brain Mechanisms

“We found that GABA - a chemical substance of the central nervous system that inhibits neurons in the brain - may provide a very useful target for nicotine addiction therapies,“ said Graeme Mason, Ph.D., associate professor in the Magnetic Resonance Research Center in the Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. „GABA is just one of a complex network of actors that promotes addiction, and we’re hoping that this research will ultimately lead us to ways to help people quit smoking.“

Mason sought to discover whether the enjoyable effects associated with smoking could be reduced in some way. When people use nicotine they may experience a sensation of reward, diminished anxiety, or a belief that they can focus more clearly or learn more easily. Researchers wanted to explore how a specific type of neuron that releases dopamine can prolong and intensify the pleasurable effects of nicotine. Although GABA inhibits those neurons, nicotine works against the ability of GABA to inhibit dopamine neurons after about 20 minutes, so the gratifying effects of nicotine are prolonged.

Researchers gave people who smoked regularly nicotine inhalers that deliver the same amount of the drug as in one cigarette. The amount of GABA in the subjects’ brains rose about 10%, but the brain was found to make GABA four times faster after using the inhalers, and the rate of new GABA generation remained high for at least 45 minutes. In other words, keeping the supply of GABA levels high has the potential to reduce the pleasurable effects of smoking, in terms of duration and intensity.

„While GABA is probably not the root of nicotine addiction, it is part of a complex network of actors that are involved in addiction,“ Mason says.